The Martin MAC III is a third generation MAC fixture and it uses the new Osram 1500-watt single-ended short arc lamp with a FastFit base. The resulting colors range from pastel to incredible. The color system uses four color wheels, each with seven colors in a series of stepped color gradients with increasing in saturation. The newly design optical train projects gobos with impressive clarity, even at its widest 56° zoom.

The Bad Boy is aptly named – it’s bright, it has great optics, great color, and it’s very fast. Other noteworthy moving lights debuting at the show include the PRG Bad Boy, Martin’s new MAC III, High End Systems StudioPix, and SGM’s Giotto 1500, among many others. This may not be the be all and end all for green stage lighting, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. Although it’s still in prototype form, Robe showed a moving head fixture using the Luxim LIFI Entertainment 30 Series lamp and RF power supply and it had an incredibly uniform field and surprisingly high output for such a small source. This year’s crop of automated lights are innovative in the way they are engineered, the way they render color, and even the light sources.Īt least one manufacturer is experimenting with a new plasma source that’s the size of a Tic Tac with an efficacy of about 60 lumens per watt and a CRI of up to 94. What’s that you say? That’s nothing new? Ah, but they are new in many ways. Some of the highlights of the show included new automated lights from PRG, Martin, Robe, SGM, High End Systems, and a number of other manufacturers. And unlike years past, there was more than LEDs and media servers. This year’s PLASA differed from last year’s in that there seemed to be much more change and more innovative new products.

Fifteenth century Italy had its Renaissance men, but we have our Renaissance machines – software and hardware in a variety of areas that will redefine the entertainment lighting industry as we know it.

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